What actually are vitamin supplements? How can a vitamin which we can get from sunlight be recreated or captured in a powdery pill? Are vitamin supplements synthetic, or “real” products from nature?
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To your last question: a molecule is the same regardless of how its made. Your body does not know or care where it came from as long as it is chemically identical – natural or artificial does not matter in the slightest.
What *might* matter, depending on the vitamin, is the “context” which can affect bioavailability. That is, your body may absorb a vitamin better when you are also digesting sugar or protein or some other vitamin. Since your supplement doesn’t contain those other things, your body may not absorb the vitamin effectively. Some supplements make up for this by just having more so that even if you’re only getting 10% or whatever you’re still getting enough.
Also, some vitamins are toxic in high amounts. These tend not to be available in over the counter supplements. On the other hand, some – like vitamin C – are effectively never toxic so supplements stuff 300% of your daily need and you’ll just pee out what you don’t need.
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